WARLORDS OF DRANEOR: QUESTING

Welcome back to the second part of the WoD review! Today, we’ve ventured through the dark portal into the fabled land of the Frostwolf clan and old Draneor. What can we expect to find today in this new, unexplored land when it comes to questing? Well, let’s cover that, shall we?

Warcraft: Lord of the Clans (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First off, Blizzard promised questing in WoD would be fast-paced. How, unlike other quests it would not feel as if you have to drag your feet as you’re playing the game. This is true. Blizzard has done a great job of making the quests far more streamlined while playing. While questing in WoW has always been linear, questing in WoD is anything but old. From the freezing cold of the frost wolf lands to the steamy jungles of Talador, the questing system is extremely engaging.

One aspect of the questing system that makes it easier is the fact it makes the player feel motivated to play. Why are you collecting plants? Well, you’re collecting the plants to help save the life of another’s fallen comrade. Why are you fighting the ogres? You’re fighting the ogres to secure land and resources for your garrison. Each quest is easy to complete, but not so easy a player will quit from there being no challenge to the game itself.

Blizzard also makes sure the quests crisscross between zones. Rather than keeping a player in one area for a set number of hours they have players zipping back and forth across the map. Where a player has to turn in a quest at the garrison, they may be asked to fly back across Talador. After Talador, there may be an option of going back to the garrison or to start questing in another zone. There are numerous options to choose from without a player ever feeling overwhelmed. This helps for each area to feel not only fresh, but also encourages exploration. Venturing into a cave may yield a new piece of gear, a trinket, or in some rare instances a new pet or mount.

Perhaps the only downside to the new questing system is that there are a still a few bugs for Blizzard to work out. For example, on one quest line a player is required to stick Horde flags in the fallen bodies of ogres. The quest would sometimes bug out and didn’t mention players had to kill ogres in the spire in order to insert their flag. On the quest it states a player only needs to insert five flags in order to complete the quest. When, in fact, the player had to insert EIGHT flags into dead ogre bodies for the quest to truly be completed. There were also some instances where quest bosses have bugged out or do not reappear. Requiring the player to either re-upload their screen to make the boss appear, or abandon the quest and re-accept it in order to continue playing.

However, we would like to note that the expansion is still pretty new. So it’s expected bugs are going to pop up now and again.